Of city lounges, assembly-prohibitions and musclemen in pink stilettos

ir/relevance of race seminar with Marguerite van den Berg

Lecture

Class, race and gender in productions of space for Rotterdam’s post-industrial future

Abstract

Like many other cities in the West, Rotterdam actively imagines a future beyond its industrial past. The consensus among policy makers, economists and politicians has been for some time that the city needs to depart its industrial economy and invest in what is commonly referred to as a post-industrial economy: one of consumption and services.

In policy efforts towards this imagined Rotterdam, desired and undesired populations are quite explicitly outlined and targeted.

Commonly referred to as ‘opportunity rich’ and ‘opportunity poor’, populations are respectively actively attracted and displaced. For this presentation I will outline two particular spatial phenomena (the ‘city lounge’ and the ‘prohibition of assembly’) to show the gendered, classed and racial logic of the production of a post-industrial Rotterdam that looks something like a muscleman in pink stilettos. 

About the lecturer

Marguerite van den Berg is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Marguerite's work is positioned where urban studies, gender studies and sociologies of culture overlap. She has published on paternalism, sexualities, policy practices, urban revanchism, city marketing, genderfication and Madonna. 

About the seminar series

In this seminar series the relevance and irrelevance of race is being discussed as an object and concept of research in order to explore ways to talk about race without naturalizing differences. The series goes beyond a standard definition of race, one that is allegedly relevant everywhere, and situates race in specific practices of research. In addition the series gives room to the various different versions of race that can be found in the European context and explores when and how populations, religions, and cultures become naturalized and racialized. Scholars from different (inter)disciplinary fields (such as genetics, anthropology, philosophy, cultural studies, history, political sciences, science and technology studies) are invited to address the issue of race through a paper presentation. The seminar is held every six weeks at the University of Amsterdam. Webpage Seminar Series: http://bit.ly/VKg6tt 

Published by  AISSR